


An Exception

by wagamiller



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:46:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22228879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wagamiller/pseuds/wagamiller
Summary: Jack is going to drive himself home and out of her life, possibly for good, and he probably won’t even break the speed limit doing it.Damn that sensible, stubborn man.Post ep for 2x07: Blood at the Wheel
Relationships: Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson
Comments: 21
Kudos: 144





	An Exception

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a couple of years ago in almost one sitting immediately after I saw this episode for the first time. It's been sat in my google docs ever since but the new year seemed as good a time as any to spruce it up and gave it a title at last.  
> Please forgive any typos, they're several years old now.

Despair gives way to anger the second the front door closes behind Jack. 

By the time Phryne hears the click of her front gate closing, she’s positively livid. The sound of his car starting is the last straw, spurring her into action. Jack is going to drive himself home and out of her life, possibly for good, and he probably won’t even break the speed limit doing it.

Damn that sensible, stubborn man. 

Phryne dashes after him, wrenching open her front door and launching herself down the garden path, ready to rage at his tail-lights. She reaches her gate in no time flat and yanks it open so hard that it clatters against the gate-post, the sound reverberating through the quiet street and sending birds scattering from her hedgerow. 

In the ringing silence that follows, two things occur to Phryne in very quick succession.

Jack’s car isn’t moving, for one. It’s still parked just outside the house, motionless despite the quiet hum of the engine. Jack is a vague silhouette in the driver’s seat, his head bowed so low it could be resting on the steering wheel. The second realisation follows when Jack’s head lifts and starts to turn her way. Oh, but she has absolutely no idea what to do now.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. This was to be a one-sided conversation – Phryne versus the empty street – a burst of rage to burn away the tears behind her eyes. He wasn’t supposed to be able to answer back, to turn those sad, soft eyes on her again and make her forget herself enough to ask him to stay. It isn’t fair. Nothing about this whole night is.

Phryne hovers at the threshold of her property, much too late to avoid his attention and much, much too angry to really want to. Eyes fixed on Jack, she watches his shoulders rise and fall before he opens the car door and unfolds himself back onto the pavement, tossing his hat inside the car. He doesn’t kill the engine, doesn’t even close the car door behind him. He isn’t staying. Isn’t going, either.

He doesn’t move any closer and she’ll be damned if she chases after him for one more step, so their standoff occurs from a few feet apart – Jack beside his car, Phryne on her front step. Jack doesn’t say a word, he barely even seems to be breathing and it occurs to Phryne that he’s probably expecting her to break the silence, maybe even to rail at him. It’s a perfectly sensible assumption given that she just chased him down the garden path but since Jack has concluded that she’s incapable of being sensible she sees no point in trying to disprove that now. It’s too late for that. His car is still running, and so is he.

Phryne folds her arms tightly and says nothing, giving in to the childish, contrary urge to provoke him with her silence. Jack bears it with good grace and the merest hint of a smile, quickly suppressed. She thinks she might hate him a little for that – for starting to smile and for stopping. More than anything, for stopping.

Far too quickly the silence grows heavy. Thick. They’re both still enough that the birds frightened by Phryne’s dash down the garden start to return, swooping back to the hedge in a sudden rush of wings. Jack watches them down, running his thumb back and forth over the fingers of one hand, the slightest tell of his shredded nerves. Phryne tries to focus on just the birds, to listen to the way their chatter mingles with the chorus of crickets in the grass but it’s no use. She can’t take her eyes off the restless motion of Jack’s hands, can’t hear a thing but the hum of the engine still waiting to take him away from her. 

Just like that she can’t stand the quiet a moment longer. Neither, it seems, can he. 

He says, “Miss Fisher–”

At the same moment, she says, “Jack–”

“Sorry.” The tight lipped smile he attempts stings far more than it cheers. “Please go on. Whatever you have to say, I’m sure I deserve it.”

“Well ... yes,” she says, wrong-footed and more than a little irritated by his attitude. Self-loathing doesn’t suit him, not a bit. Phryne lifts her chin, trying very hard to look right over his head and failing spectacularly. “I’m quite sure you do.”

Jack has no answer for that – no comeback, no wry comment. He simply inclines his head, wordlessly prompting her to continue, to let him have it.

It’s so bloody irritating.

“Jack, look–”

The monologue she’d have called after his car would’ve been spectacular, she’s sure of it.

“I don’t–”

Shakespearean, possibly.

“That is, I–”

Colourful, definitely.

“You–”

Infinitely better than this nonsense, anyway. 

Phryne chokes down another half-formed thought and wonders briefly if it’s really anger that’s making her shake like this. It’s far safer to conclude that it is. Safer to stay exactly where she is, hovering on the step at the edge of the garden, far enough away that she can’t touch him even when she extends an accusing finger towards his heart.

“You – you do not get to make me cry, Jack Robinson,” is all she says, in the end.

It’s hardly the accusation she intended. It isn’t a curse on his cowardice or his stubbornness or his silly, decent, generous heart. It doesn’t even say a damn thing about him though it might just say every single thing about her. Still, she decides with all the recklessness of the whiskey she drank while she waited for him, in for a penny and all that.

“No man has that right.” She snatches her hand up, smoothing it over her hair as if that might smooth the raw edges inside her somehow. “D’you hear me? None.”

Jack merely nods mutely, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders drawn in. Then, without a word, he turns away from her and starts back towards his open car door. That’s when Phryne decides that she really does hate him – absolutely, positively despises him. 

She opens her mouth to call him a coward but before she can find her voice amid the fury choking her, Jack reaches inside the car and turns off the engine. He closes the door and turns back towards her, and she wonders if her hasty assumption is written all over her face, if it’s what’s causing that crease between his eyebrows, those downturned lips.

“I wasn’t–” He waves a hand towards the car.

“I know that.”

“I wouldn’t–” 

She inclines her head. “I should have known that too.”

“I’m sorry, Phryne.” The light’s too poor for her to see his eyes clearly so she really can’t tell if it’s a decision or a defeat when he starts walking back towards her. “It was never my intention to–”

“Yes, well,” she interrupts, suddenly unable to bear the thought of seriously discussing the tears that are still threatening behind her eyes. “Unintentional crime is still crime, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh, a crime, was it?” he says, the faintest hint of teasing in his voice. His heart’s not in it, but he tries anyway, for her sake. “I didn’t realise that.”

She rolls her eyes. “Call yourself a policeman.”

Jack huffs a sigh that’s almost a laugh, stopping so close to her that she could swear she feels the warmth of his breath coasting over her neck. He’s a little lower than her, standing on the pavement while she stays on the step, and when he looks up at her through wet eyelashes, a sad sort of smile gracing his tired face, the urge to take him in her arms is almost too much to bear.

“I am sorry, Phryne,” he says again, and this time he’s close enough that she can hear how wrecked he sounds, how desperate. “For everything.”

“I don’t like this, Jack,” she says, voice trembling much like it had back in the parlour. “I don’t like this at all.”

“Nor do I.”

“It isn’t fair.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Stop agreeing with me.”

His lips quirk. “First time for everything.”

“Oh, can’t you see?” She chokes out a wet laugh, wildly waving a hand between them. “How can you give this up?”

“I think I have to,” he says, serious again. All of him seems to tremble with something suppressed, something that it seems to be taking everything in him to fight.

Phryne heaves a sigh, brushing at the one tear that’s finally escaped her eyes. “Well ... _damn_.” 

“Don’t,” he says brokenly, and Phryne realises what he was fighting against at the very second that he loses the war and surges up onto the step beside her. She stumbles back a pace but he catches her easily, slipping his arms around her waist and tugging her into his arms. 

Self-preservation, that instinct he seems to think she doesn’t possess, kicks in at immediately. Phryne tries to hold herself perfectly still, to resist the urge to sink into the warmth of him, until he breathes out a ragged sigh against her collarbone and it occurs to her that he’s still intending to walk out of her life tonight. Suddenly it seems impossibly foolish to be standing stock still like this, letting the moment pass by. She winds her arms around his neck and lets herself feel everything – the end of the day roughness of his jaw against her cheek, the pressure of his warm hands of her back, and the shudder he lets out when her lips hover at his neck where his shirt collar meets his skin. 

“Don’t cry,” he says again when her wet cheek brushes his. She can feel his heart hammering in his chest, even as he tries to make light of it all. “I don’t have the right, remember?”

“Well,” she says, pulling back to look at him, “perhaps just this once.”

The barest hint of a smile flashes across his face and she sucks in a breath, feeling it shudder and tremble through her, knowing that he can feel it too. His eyes fall to her lips and the moment stretches, dangerously, until his face clouds over and Phryne remembers all over again why they’re outside right now, why he’s not drinking the whiskey she poured for him.

“I ought–” He releases his hold on her and drops back down onto the pavement, clearing his throat. “Phryne, I have to go.”

“No, you don’t,” she says simply, fixing him with a the steadiest stare she can manage. Given the circumstances, it’s not particularly steady at all, but she does her best. It’s not the anger from earlier that’s making her tremble, nor the memory of his arms around her waist. It’s how important this is, how much she needs him to hear this, to see that it doesn’t have to be so final. “You’re choosing to go – choosing to give this – me – up.”

“Yes.” Jack shifts his weight, his fingers starting up their restless motion again. “I suppose I am.”

“Which means,” she says slowly, “that you can always change your mind. Choose differently.” She smiles at him then, shrugging slightly. Like it’s just that easy. “Any time, Jack.”

Jack blinks slowly and for a moment she thinks he’s going to be angry, going to take this for a tactic, yet another attempt to cajole him into something when he doesn’t want to. But when he opens his eyes there’s only understanding there, warmed by something like appreciation. She’s hardly begging, never would, but leaving a door open like this has cost her something nonetheless and she thinks he might just understand that. Perhaps that’s why he’s worth it.

“You wouldn’t mind?” he asks quietly, fixing her with a stare that’s as steady as hers – that is, not at all. His lips twitch slightly, a flash of dark amusement appearing in his eyes. “Isn’t changing one’s mind only a woman’s prerogative?”

“You know I’ve never cared a jot for expectations around gender, Jack,” she says at once, waving a hand. “And anyway, haven’t we just established that I find you to be something of an exception to rules?”

“Thank you,” he says, a fond smile tugging at his lips. “For ... all of it.” He waves a hand, as though the simple gesture could capture all they’ve experienced together.

The sincerity in his voice, laced so dangerously with regret, makes Phryne’s throat suddenly tight. She presses her lips together and Jack ducks his head quickly to the pavement, though there’s no cowardice in the way he averts his gaze. It’s meant as a kindness, she realises, to allow her a moment to regain her usual composure, to wave him off without a hint of what it’s doing to her.

It’s the last thing in the world she wants.

Just this once, she wants to show it. Not to hurt him, though she’s sure it will, but because she feels it. All the men she’s sent on their way and not a single one has ever hurt like this. Whatever he makes of it, he deserves to see that.

She waits quietly until he looks up again, making no effort to quell the sick feeling in her gut, to slow her frantic heart. He considers her, his eyes flitting from her trembling hands to the way she’s pressing her lips together, cataloguing the evidence like she’s seen him do a hundred times. Then he nods almost imperceptibly and Phryne knows he understands. 

“Go on then,” she says briskly, nodding towards his car. “Past time you were on your way, I think.”

“You’re right.”

“I usually am,” she jokes, earning a smile as weak as her joke.

He breathes in once, a little shallow. “Goodbye then,” he says very quietly, inclining his head.

“Until you change your mind.”

He rolls his eyes. “If–”

“Until,” she corrects him. “Goodnight, Inspector Robinson.” 

“Goodnight, Miss Fisher.”

This time he really does turn to go but she stops him with a hand on his lapels, tugging him back to face her. He looks up at her, sad and tired and beautiful, and she can’t believe that she really won’t see his face again tomorrow. Or the next. Or the next. 

“Jack,” she amends, taking his face in her hands and angling his head down to press a kiss to his forehead. 

“Phryne,” he echoes, voice ragged. 

Jack leaves as soon as she releases him and she doesn’t wait to watch, simply turns on her heel and returns to the house.

The tumbler of whiskey she poured for him is where she left it, on the side table beside the chair that he should be sitting in. She drains it, waiting for the sound of his car driving away at last. When it finally comes she throws the empty glass against the wall with enough force to shatter it and heads straight to bed.

“Miss Fisher?” Mr Butler’s concerned voice follows her up the stairs. “Is everything quite alright?”

“No, Mr Butler,” she says, without turning around. “I’m afraid it’s all gone wrong.”


End file.
